Hurricane Sandy formed October 22, 2012 in the Caribbean. Sandy hit Kingston, Jamaica, causing about $100 million dollars in damage and leaving people without electricity. One person died. After Jamaica, Sandy strengthened to a Category 2 hurricane. Haiti was flooded terribly, causing 54 deaths, a lot of homelessness, and food shortages. Two people also died from this storm in the Dominican Republic, Canada, the Bahamas, and one person in Puerto Rico from the flooding. Cuba was especially hard hit, resulting in $2 billion dollars in damage, extensive flooding, and killing eleven people.

In the United States, residents were warned to evacuate certain areas, stock up on supplies, and attempt to weatherproof homes. Schools and businesses closed in preparation for the onslaught, and utility companies attempted to come up with ways to keep the grid online. A lot of flights were canceled. In total, twenty four states were directly impacted from Hurricane Sandy. The most heavily devastated were New York and New Jersey. I think most of us have seen the iconic images of the rollercoaster from Seaside Heights in the shallows of the ocean, which is what I remember most about the coverage of this storm. New York was flooded, with water pouring into subway entrances like waterfalls. A lot of buildings and landscaping were damaged from the onslaught as well. Over 100 people died in the United States.

All told, the storm caused over $68 billion dollars in damage. 233 people in total died. This was the deadliest and most destructive storm of the 2012 Hurricane Season. The book (which I found in large print!) was really interesting. It had a lot of information in it about how hurricane's are tracked and mapped. I had no idea that people really flew into these storms still... I guess I thought there was a new and improved way. That is a terrifying job that I would not like to have. In the book, it mentions several people on cruise ships during this storm, and I cannot imagine how horrifying that was. (Some of them were on their first ever cruise and surviving that would make me very firm in never doing it again, especially not during that time of year.) I really enjoyed this book and the personal stories in it.